We will see the installation piece “Fengkuei Chair,” consisting of two pieces; one is a ceiling fan combined with a wooden cabinet, while the other piece is a ceiling fan and wooden chair. The rotating ceiling fan is inserted into a gap in the wooden furniture, the objects suspended off the ground like isolated islands, the unusual combination of familiar objects prompting viewers to ponder the implications. 

Fengkuei is a well-known scenic spot in Chen Shun-Chu’s home county of Penghu. The name, literally meaning “cabinet of the wind,” is related to the unusual landscape created by the long-term interaction of the ocean winds, waves, and the rocky shore, and the sounds that it produces. Chen has therefore used “Fengkuei” in the name of the piece, and adapted the concept; the ocean breeze of nature is replaced by the ceiling fan of civilization, while the rocks hollowed out by the erosion of the ocean becomes a wooden cabinet used by humans for storage, and the scene of the rocky shore becomes a household chair. Similarly, memories and sentiments of natural scenery from the artist’s home have been transformed into images of household life both real and imagined.

The cabinet both holds items and stores memories, while the fan both blows air and stirs reflection.  When a tiny voice or thought, drifting with the wind, arrives at a space or place that resonates, can it produce an effect like the amplification and reverberation heard at Fengkuei, continually stirring recollections and revitalizing them? In contrast to the nature of the cabinet as a fixed, accommodating, domestic, and collectively used object, the chair is characterized as individual, independent, wandering and carefree; the artist uses this contrast to link his background of having grown up in Penghu with his experience of living in Taiwan, with outwardly visible objects bringing out inner emotional tension.

*image (left)
Chen Shun-Chu
Fengkuei Chair, 2011 
Wooden cabinet, wooden chair, ceiling fan, bowl, glass cup, water, one group of two pieces 
courtesy of the artist